Iranian basis presents land to Salman Rushdie’s attacker: Report

An Iranian basis has praised a person accused of severely injuring novelist Salman Rushdie in an assault final 12 months and promised him 1,000 sq metres of agricultural land.

Dubai ,UPDATED: Feb 21, 2023 19:56 IST

Hadi Matar (left) seems in court docket on costs of tried homicide and assault on writer Salman Rushdie in New York final 12 months. (File picture: Reuters)

By Reuters:

An Iranian basis has praised a person accused of severely injuring novelist Salman Rushdie in an assault final 12 months and promised him 1,000 sq metres of agricultural land, state TV reported on Tuesday on its Telegram channel.

Rushdie, 75, misplaced a watch and using one hand following the assault on the stage of a literary occasion held close to Lake Erie in western New York state in August.

Hadi Matar, a Shi’ite Muslim American from New Jersey, has pleaded not responsible to costs of second-degree tried homicide and assault.

“We sincerely thank the brave action of the young American who made Muslims happy by blinding one of Rushdie’s eyes and disabling one of his hands,” mentioned Mohammad Esmail Zarei, secretary of the Foundation to Implement Imam Khomeini’s Fatwas.

Also Read | India condemns ‘horrific attack’ on writer Salman Rushdie

“Rushdie is now no more than living dead and, to honour this brave action, about 1,000 square metres of agricultural land will be donated to the person or any of his legal representatives.”

The Indian-born novelist was set to ship a lecture on inventive freedom on the Chautauqua Institution when police say Matar rushed the stage and stabbed him.

Also Read | ‘His fight is our fight’: France President Emmanuel Macron condemns assault on Salman Rushdie

The assault got here 33 years after Shi’ite Iran’s late supreme chief Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa or non secular edict calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie following the discharge of his novel “The Satanic Verses”. Some Muslims noticed passages in regards to the Prophet Muhammad within the novel as blasphemous.

Matar’s household comes from the south Lebanon city of Yaroun.

A regulation enforcement overview of Matar’s social media accounts confirmed he was sympathetic to Shi’ite extremism and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in keeping with the NBC New York information outlet.

Also Read | ‘You are subsequent’: Author JK Rowling receives demise menace over tweet on Salman Rushdie

Streets in Yaroun bear posters of Khomeini, whereas the brand of Lebanon’s Iranian-armed Hezbollah group adorns monuments to its fighters. Hezbollah mentioned in August it didn’t know something in regards to the assault on Rushdie.

Ali Tehfe, mayor of Yaroun, mentioned Matar’s mother and father had emigrated to the United States, the place Matar was born and raised, however that he had no data on their political beliefs.

Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim Kashmiri household, spent 9 years in hiding underneath British police safety.

Also Read | ‘Middle East journey modified him’: Mother of man who attacked Salman Rushdie in New York

While a pro-reform Iranian authorities underneath president Mohammad Khatami distanced itself from the fatwa within the late Nineteen Nineties, the multimillion-dollar bounty hanging over him has saved rising and the fatwa has by no means been lifted.

Khomeini’s successor as supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was suspended from Twitter in 2019 for saying the fatwa in opposition to Rushdie was “irrevocable”.

Posted By:

Raajnandini Mukherjee

Published On:

Feb 21, 2023